Vancouver’s downtown East Side always seems to be on people’s lips and with good reason. The area bordered by Gastown, Chinatown and the Waterfront is home to some of the most painful sites you’ll ever get to see. Homelessness, rampant addiction, sadness and despair. So when people talk about taking the steps to regenerate the neighbourhood, people tend to roll their eyes, we’ve all heard it before.

So it comes as no surprise then the the area has begun to regenerate itself, not under the watchful of politician and money makers, but at the hands of b-boys, artists, rogue chefs and independent business people.

Garret Louie is one of these people. A legend in the city as one half of hip-hop promoters G-Man and Rizk, he’s put his money where his mouth is, opening the Fortune Sound club in the heart of Chinatown. With a custom designed room, a Funktion One sound system and resident DJs that bring it hot, it’s enough to spark a night life explosion, or at least a b-boy circle.

A flurry of the city’s hottest young bartenders and chefs have lights out for new territory, seizing the neighborhood as their own. The newly opened Diamond at Maple Square, Pourhouse and Deacon’s Corner are leading the culinary charge into darkened corners normally avoided by the city’s foodies… Tannis Ling‘s Bao Bei, Sean Heather’s the Judas Goat Taberna and the soon to launch culinary projects at Woodwards and the Keefer Hotel look to make the area even hotter.